


As She Is

by Jenwryn



Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-11
Updated: 2009-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can't see the numbers, when she looks at herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As She Is

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "flu" at [dn_contest](http://community.livejournal.com/dn_contest/).
> 
> This is some weird blend of AU; I have no idea when or how or why – although I _can_ tell you that this is college!Sayu. Some folks I've kept alive, others I haven't. Nudged into life by [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJOzdLwvTHA). FYI, [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_%28doll%29) is a Jenny doll (the name amuses me for probably obvious reasons). Also, I'm actually as sick as a dog myself, so that's my feeble excuse for all this sentimentality, ye gods. XD;

The room is made of steaming water and hot tea and way too many pillows. The kid at the front desk – brown hair, bad skin, a too-willing smile – had had the pillows sent up especially, a soft riot of colours and brightness. Misa has begun to loathe the sight of them; Sayu's restless tossing has seen them demoted to the floor, and Misa's socked-toes keep tripping, whenever she nears the bed. The blonde has piled most of them into a corner. It looks like a fortune teller's den. She would call someone, would have someone come and take them away again, except that Sayu hates the sound of the door being knocked upon; even room-service makes her whimper and rub her eyes.

The kid at the front desk had sent up the hotel doctor, too, but Sayu had cringed at the sight of him, and simply coughed into her sheets.

It's been exactly a month, since they'd been pushed gently into one another's orbits. Only a month, not a skerrick more, but a month is long enough. A month is long enough for Misa to know a thousand and one things – to know the way that Sayu looks in the morning as she wakes, the way she takes her tea, and exactly which advertisements the girl cannot stand (and which she'll sing along with). A month is long enough to have stood hand-in-hand by a gravestone marked _beloved son and brother_, with rain on their hats and a chasm of nothing inside, marking out six other months already passed. A month is long enough for Sayu's mother to have put her face in against her arms, on the kitchen table, and declare that she doesn't care any more, doesn't care, so long as Sayu is safe. A month is certainly long enough for Misa to know that the girl has had her fill of the medical professions, had her fill of being poked and prodded; has had her fill of being analysed.

Misa washes Sayu's forehead with a damp cloth, turns the heating up, turns the heating down, and pulls the girl onto her lap and holds her, when the the maid comes in to change the sheets.

_Nothing more than an ordinary flu_, the doctor had said, his lips puckered around a pen, as if he'd wanted to smoke, but had known that he wasn't allowed to. _She'll live_.

Misa knows full well that she'll live, because Misa can see it; because Misa looks at the girl and sees the date dancing, taunting, mocking her in crimson. Misa still has the eyes, still has her memories, because Misa still has Rem. Rem, who cares for her so much – who cared enough to break all the rules and break her promises, because it meant that Misa would be saved, even saved from herself. (And because a stubborn detective had decided to do the same. It's because of L that Misa still has Rem, because L had done what Rem had needed him to do, rather than forcing her to do it herself; Rem may be adoration, but L is candy-flavoured, steel-lined justice.) Yes, Misa still has the eyes, but she hates the numbers with a passion. She's trained herself to ignore them, trained herself to smile in the direction of people's lips or shoulders, rather than their eyes.

She doesn't want to avoid Sayu's eyes, though, and there's the rub of it, in the end.

_She'll live_, the doctor had mumbled, before leering at Misa and shuffling out of the room, without so much as having had the decency to trip on a stupid pillow. She'll live, but it still scares the blonde. Misa's never really done this before, not truly. Her parents had taken care of themselves, of course; they'd been the grown-ups, back then. And since those days... Misa has only had to look after Misa. Nobody else has let her; not even Light had let her, not really. Certainly nobody else has needed her. Not for _her_. Nobody else has considered her able. They've looked at her and they've seen a ditz, a blonde, an idol maybe, a Jenny doll, a helpless girl.

Misa isn't a helpless girl. She's older than people take her for. She wants things. She wants to be wanted.

And Sayu. Sayu considers her able. Sayu needs her, just as much as Misa needs Sayu.

It's why Misa has to look at the girl's eyes, even though it means seeing that date. The pain of the numbers is outweighed by the trembling joy of the emotion.

Sayu wants her, and Sayu needs her, and Misa thinks she still can't quite believe it, but she's willing to roll with the concept, cling to it, hold it close as long as it lasts.

Sayu calls her name when she's feverish and, when the heat dips into chill, Sayu lets the blonde pull the blankets up around them and press her skin close. "You'll catch it too," Sayu protests, when her throat is calm enough to allow her to speak – the sting, she whispers, is enough to make her want to scratch nails into flesh – but Misa is as stubborn as can be. Besides, Misa is also rather of the opinion that, frankly, if she were going to catch something, she would have done so by now. She's also rather of the opinion that it would be worth it.

Misa still can't see numbers, when she looks at herself in the mirror, but there is one new thing there, one thing she's not seen in such a long time: there's a Misa, whom somebody else actually _sees;_ sees beyond the surface, sees her just as she is, and accepts it.

There's a Misa, who is loved.

Over in the corner, with the rainbow of cushions, Rem is humming, meaningless ups and downs, happier than Misa can ever remember.

"Ssh," Misa says, and probably she's talking to herself, probably she's talking to the bubble of terror, of wonder, of incomprehension, that catches in her own throat, whenever Sayu's eyes are open long enough to catch a hold and remind Misa that the universe has changed. That the universe has changed, shattered, crystallised, been re-written into something unexpected and so much better.

"Ssh," she says, when Sayu mumbles in her dreams, entangled in sheets and nightmares. "Ssh", she sings. And, when the morning comes, and Sayu wakes, eyes clear for the first time in days, and curls her fingers close against Misa's face, Misa brushes dark strands of hair from the girl's pale neck, and traces kisses in their wake.

The kid from the front desk sends up a neatly-addressed parcel along with the breakfast tray; the package contains frothy pink scarves made of Indian silk, a single boxed cupcake with an L on it, and a piece of paper bearing nothing but an address; some place in a country Misa's never heard of before. Sayu rolls onto her back, skin cool to the touch for the first time in hours, and runs the silk through her fingers, staining the sunlight carnation.

Misa acts all important and tells the maid, who brings it, that they aren't to be disturbed again, and exchanges the parcel for an armful of rejected pillows.

And then she sits amongst the bedsheets and writes a letter, all hotel stationery and whimsical handwriting; another _thank you_ for the detective who helped to break her heart, then helped her find a new one.


End file.
